Quester -- Like ND said above, the problem could be with the enclosure, not the HD itself. If possible, you should try to remove the HD from it's enclosure and see if you can mount it as an internal drive.

So I am finally joining the smartphone crowd! I'm on T-Mobile, and my two main contenders are the Motorola CLIQ 2 and the Samsung Exhibit 4G. I am drawn to the slider keyboard on the CLIQ 2, but it's only 3G. The Exhibit doesn't have as good a camera, but it's 4G. The T-Mobile guy was pushing the Exhibit, which is also cheaper. I did play with it a bit and found it pretty easy to use.

I've never had a smartphone, so I don't really know what I'm looking for in a smartphone. I don't need anything high-end, but I know I'll be using it for browsing and e-mail and GPS and the occasional YouTube video, surely. And, of course, Angry Birds. Any recommendations/suggestions? Consuela, how are you liking your myTouch 4G? It's more expensive than the CLIQ and Exhibit.

I would go for the Exhibit, because it's running Gingerbread (Android 2.3) while the Cliq is running Froyo (Android 2.2) - better to have the latest one since it can be hard to upgrade Android sometimes, from what I hear. Plus, I've really found that the physical keyboard isn't as necessary as you think: it takes about a week for most people to get used to the software keyboard on iOS/Android, and after that the physical keyboard just adds weight/thickness for no reason.

For what it's worth, I never use the keyboard on my HTC G2 (also TMO). Does the Exhibit use Swype for typing? Because that's fantastic, and makes it so much easier to use the touchscreen for typing.

I like my MyTouch. It's pretty much an iPhone, and I get many of the same apps. The stuff I use the most often are the email, phone, text, & websurfing abilities.

I'm also dependent on the GPS/mapping applications--the down side there is that keeping the GPS on burns through the battery, so I keep it turned off. When I turn on the maps, it takes several minutes for the GPS to figure out where it is, and that can be a problem when I'm in a hurry.

The MyTouch uses Swipe--it doesn't have a dedicated keyboard. Swipe works pretty well, but it takes some getting used to; I suspect I'll never be as fast on it as my nieces are on their phones with a full keyboard. The upside is that the phones with the slider keyboards sometimes have mechanical problems.

What else do I like? Oh, I use the bus and BART-tracking app a lot, and IMDB, and Netflix, and Yelp and Open Table. Oh, and the Facebook app.

The camera on the MyTouch is surprisingly good, although it's not great at telephoto. The phone works fine, although I had some trouble in the beginning with the accelerometer not talking properly to the phone, and I couldn't hang up a call. I ended up swapping out the phone entirely, and the new one works fine.

Down side: the battery drain is significant, and I've had to teach myself to plug it in every night, and I bought a charger for the office. There's a bug in the MyTouch software, where occasionally the OS just spools up and burns through the battery for no apparent reason--it's easy enough to fix by restarting the phone, but it's a minor annoyance.

I am just starting to experiment with Pandora, which works pretty well on it.

One thing I would like is a way to post to DW without going through the website, but nobody's done a DW client yet for Android, so far as I can tell.

I would go for the Exhibit, because it's running Gingerbread (Android 2.3) while the Cliq is running Froyo (Android 2.2) - better to have the latest one since it can be hard to upgrade Android sometimes, from what I hear.

Yeah, that's definitely a factor.

Plus, I've really found that the physical keyboard isn't as necessary as you think: it takes about a week for most people to get used to the software keyboard on iOS/Android, and after that the physical keyboard just adds weight/thickness for no reason.

Heh, that's exactly what the T-Mobile guy said.

Does the Exhibit use Swype for typing? Because that's fantastic, and makes it so much easier to use the touchscreen for typing.

It does have Swype. They both do. It seems pretty cool, and I assume it learns?

Oh, I use the bus and BART-tracking app a lot, and IMDB, and Netflix, and Yelp and Open Table. Oh, and the Facebook app.

Oh, yeah, I'd be using all those too!

Down side: the battery drain is significant, and I've had to teach myself to plug it in every night, and I bought a charger for the office.

Yeah, I'm going to have to get used to the fact that smartphones have to be charged every night.

Oh, and yeah, the cost is a factor, but I had my last phone for 4 years, and I figured I would get a high-end one now and keep it for a long time, so I wouldn't get obsolete as fast as I would with a cheaper one.

My impetus behind buying a smartphone now is that my company will pay for part of it and the monthly costs as long as I install the Good application that allows me to check work e-mail on my phone. And I can buy a new one in 18 months (assuming I'm still here, of course). The Exhibit is actually twenty bucks cheaper than the CLIQ 2; I figure I go for the cheaper phone now and then once I actually know what I want from a smartphone, I can shell out for the better phone later (the Galaxy looks really cool, but it's $70 more than the Exhibit).

Apparently the GX2 and the HTC Sensation 4G are the phones to get on T-mobile, but definitely more expensive.

PC, did you consider the Nexus S? It has the advantage of being a pure Google experience phone, which means it should get upgrades faster.